


The Last Dance

by flimflam99



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 01:20:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13353507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flimflam99/pseuds/flimflam99
Summary: An alternate ending to TFP.  Inspired by Mark Gatiss' comment that Sherlock's trial involving Molly was originally going to entail Molly actually in a coffin and Sherlock having to get her out of it....





	1. Chapter 1

When Molly woke the air felt oppressive and her head felt fuzzy. She lifted her hand to her head and knocked against something wooden above her. There was something there, inches above her that wouldn’t move. She couldn’t sit up and she felt with both her hands and legs before coming to the awful realisation that she was trapped, trapped inside a wooden structure….. a coffin?

Molly felt her heart begin to pound and she tried desperately to lift the top but it would not give way. She suddenly felt very light headed and lay back down against the silk of the lining of the coffin. Try to think Molly……….

She had been at Bart’s, was just about to go home when two men had entered the lab where she was working. Two men supposedly from IT…… They had pushed passed her and injected her with something. Molly couldn’t remember anything else.

She felt a tear run down her cheek. How much longer did she have left? She couldn’t think, whatever they had injected her with was making her feel woozy and she just could not think. Why had she been taken? Did it have anything to do with Sherlock and the explosion just the day before at 221B. The explosion that had injured Mycroft Holmes enough to hospitalise him and for Sherlock and John to disappear without a trace. No-one knew where they had gone, not even Lestrade. 

That made Molly think of her phone and her hand moved to the pockets of her lab coat. Which was when she realised that she wasn’t wearing her lab coat. She didn’t have her normal top and trousers on, she was wearing a dress. A silky dress. Molly ran her hands over it, it felt more of a formal dress than a casual one. Even that small gesture seemed to tire her and her hands fell limply to her sides.

Another tear fell down her cheek as she realised there was nothing she could do. She had no way of contacting anyone and even if she had she had no idea where she was. She would die here and probably would never be found. Not that anyone would miss her. John would miss her she supposed and Mrs Hudson. Rosie would soon forget her and as for Sherlock….. well she wouldn’t go down that route.

Mary would have missed her. Another tear fell as Molly wondered whether she would see her again soon. Molly believed in the afterlife, she had seen too many strange things in the morgue. Nothing big, just small things, things that you saw out of the corner of your eye that made you look twice at something. Would Mary be there – the light at the end of the tunnel? Or maybe her dad would be there or her mum. But then Molly couldn’t really remember her mum, she had been very young when she had died. 

Molly was starting to feel sleepy and her thoughts finally started to dwell on the love of her life. Sherlock. Where was he? Was he trying to find her? Molly doubted it, she had no idea where Sherlock and John had gone but she knew they had left London. 

She remembered the last time she had seen him, the last time she had taken her turn at keeping him away from the ‘sweeties’. They had watched some TV, Sherlock was rubbishing it as normal and Molly had fallen asleep on the sofa and woken up to find Sherlock had placed a blanket over her while he had sat in his chair in his mind palace thinking. 

Would Sherlock miss her? He undoubtedly would. They were friends, in a way. He would miss her at Bart’s but there were other pathologists who would help him in the same way. Yes, he would miss her for a bit, although probably not as much as he missed Mary, and then he would get over it and move on.  
Molly began to cry more earnestly now, which wouldn’t help her breathing. She took deep breaths and began to feel more relaxed and a bit more sleepy. She needed to take her mind off of it, what was going to happen to her and she tried to think of different things that had helped her to relax in the past. Then she remembered the daydream she used to have in the early years that she knew Sherlock – before that awful Christmas party. She smiled to herself and settled down more comfortably. One last time, she thought – just once more…….

Molly was in a ballroom, she was wearing the most stunning deep green ballgown and she was sat at the side of the dance floor watching the dancing. Then a man appeared at her side dressed in a smart suit of the deepest blue. The colour brought out the blue of his eyes and his hair was a dark brown mass of curls. Molly’s breath caught. It was Sherlock Holmes the most handsome man at the ball. He held out his hand and Molly took it. She let him guide her onto the dance floor, take her in his arms and swirl her away into a waltz………..

\---------------------------

“Molly is fine at the moment, her coffin has enough air for about an hour, plenty of time for you to find her, Sherlock.” 

Sherlock ran towards the willow tree, his breath coming in short gasps while that sentence ran round and round in his head. ‘Oh yes, plenty of time, Eurus’, he thought bitterly. ‘ Only you didn’t mention that I would have to figure out that the girl in the plane was really you and that I would have to find my best friend, John Watson who was trapped in a well with the bones of my childhood friend, Victor in that same hour’. 

Sherlock grunted as the shovel he was carrying banged him in the leg. Far behind him he could also hear the squelching noise of John Watson, who despite being completely saturated with cold water and who really needed a hot bath and dry clothes insisted on catching him up to help him find Molly. He’d left John to call Lestrade on his phone that they had found in Eurus’ room while he ran to the willow tree on the other side of the estate with just ten minutes left. He didn’t want to think of how accurate Eurus’ prediction of the air inside the coffin was…..

Sherlock spied the tree in the distance and tried to run a bit faster. Overhead he could hear the sounds of a helicopter, help was at hand. He reached the tree and could easily see the disturbed earth where Molly was buried. He began to dig and was soon joined by John Watson. They quickly cleared the shallow grave.

Sherlock opened the coffin. Molly lay there in a white bridal style gown, her eyes were shut, she was smiling slightly although Sherlock could see the trace of tear tracks down her cheeks. But she looked so very pale and she was so very, very still.


	2. Chapter 2

But she was breathing. Sherlock let out his own breath in a great gasp as he realised that he could see her chest rising and falling. 

“Sherlock, look.” John whispered pointing towards the end of the coffin at Molly’s feet. “There’s some sort of tube here.” John put his finger over it and then pulled it away. “There’s air coming out of it! And look, there’s another tube on the other side..”

“She was never in danger, she had air circulation all the time, although…….” Sherlock bent his head and sniffed the air then quickly drew back. “That’s not just air coming out of there. She’s been breathing in something else as well. She’s asleep and looks very relaxed for someone trapped in a coffin.” Sherlock sounded cool and calm as ever but his heart was hammering and he needed to know she was ok, so he grabbed her by the shoulder and shook her…….

\----------------------------------

Molly was dancing with Sherlock, she had one hand placed at his shoulder and the other was tightly clasped in one of his. The dance was coming to an end and this was her favourite part, where Sherlock tenderly placed his hand on her cheek and told her that he loved her, then he would kiss her.

Sherlock stopped dancing, his smile tender and loving, full of warmth, he bent his head down towards her, his hand coming out to touch her and then he shook her.

“Molly!”

Molly pulled back, this hadn’t happened before, and wasn’t supposed to happen!

“You’re supposed to say you love me!” She snapped. Somebody behind her chuckled, Molly whirled round, her dress swirling but there was no one there, nobody was there. All the other party goers had gone, it was just Sherlock and herself. A Sherlock who had gone from being tender and loving to looking quite pensive. He suddenly reached out and picked her up in his arms, her head resting against the wool of his coat. Wait, what? Sherlock was no longer wearing a deep blue suit but had his Belstaff coat on. Molly had no idea what was going on, this was supposed to be her dream not someone else’s.

“You’re spoiling it” She muttered sleepily.

“Sorry” Sherlock muttered back.

“You still haven’t said you love me” Molly had no idea where they were going, it appeared to be outside as it was cold. She buried her nose in his coat which, to be frank, smelt a bit whiffy. Molly wrinkled her nose.

“I’ll tell you later when we are on our own and one of us isn’t doped up to the eyeballs” Sherlock huffed. 

Molly was carried by Sherlock, still in his Belstaff coat for quite a while until he gently laid her down on something soft, he started moving away and Molly shot her hand out and grabbed at him, catching his sleeve.

“No, you can’t leave! I-I love you!” Molly clutched at his sleeve gripping it tight. “Please don’t leave me.”

“I’m not going anywhere Molly.” Sherlock sounded oddly choked and he bent over her. Molly reached out and touched his face which was surprisingly wet. He bent his head closer to her and kissed her cheek. “I do love you Molly” He whispered. Molly sighed, a huge smile gracing her face as she slipped back to sleep.

\--------------------------------

When Molly regained consciousness her first thought was that if this was the afterlife then why did she have a massive headache, the second thought was why was her hand being held so tightly? The hand felt more like a man’s hand than a woman’s.

“Dad?” Molly whispered not quite wanting to open her eyes yet.

“Molly? Are you alright?” Molly recognised the voice instantly, even as the hand squeezed hers a bit more tightly. Molly opened her eyes.

“Sherlock! What are you doing here?” She croaked, trying to sit up and wincing slightly at the pain in her head. Sherlock helped her to sit up and poured her a glass of water. Molly had by this time realised that she wasn’t dead and was in fact in a hospital room. She fervently hoped that Sherlock hadn't heard her call out ‘Dad’.

Sherlock brought the glass to her lips, thoughtfully steadying it as Molly’s hands trembled slightly. The water was blissfully cold and refreshing. Sherlock put the glass down and took her hand in his again.

“Can you remember what happened?” Sherlock asked. Molly looked at him. He was in a right state, his hair was extremely scruffy, he wasn’t wearing a jacket and his shirt was muddied and torn. He also looked like he hadn’t slept for days on end and as for the expression on his face, oh, she had seen that expression before, just before he jumped off of a building.

“What’s wrong?” The words slipped out before Molly could stop them and Sherlock blinked at her in confusion for a moment.

“Molly, do you remember where you were?” 

“I was in a coffin. You found me Sherlock? But how?” It was Molly’s turn to look confused.

“It’s a long story, Molly and it’s all my fault, you could have died. I’m sorry, please forgive me.” Sherlock blinked rapidly again. Molly freed her hand from his to cup his face gently.

“Forgiven.” She stated simply. Sherlock’s lips quirked.

“Just like that?” He took her hand, kissed the palm and then laid it gently back on the bed. Molly nodded. “You don’t know the whole story.” That reminded Molly of her daydream which did not go the way it normally did.

“I dreamt about you.” She admitted slowly, eyeing him from under her lashes. Sherlock sat back in his chair.

“Did you?” His face was a picture of innocence. Molly knew that look well too. Her face flamed but when she spoke it was matter of fact and determined.

“You told me that you loved me.” Molly held her breath. “I was drugged, wasn’t I? That’s why I didn’t completely freak out.”

Sherlock nodded.

“You also told me that you would tell me you loved me when we were alone and both of us were sober.” Molly looked up at him properly then. Sherlock leaned towards her, a solemn look on face. Molly bit her lip and bent her head down thinking he was about to deny everything. He cupped her face in both of his hands, tilting her head back up. His face still solemn, he seemed to scan every inch of her face as though memorising her.

“I love you Molly Hooper.” His voice was deep and sincere. Molly’s eyes widened and then she smiled and Sherlock at last smiled too and it was like the sun had come out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You didn't think I'd let Molly die surely? Always a happy ending!


End file.
